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Name: LAWRENCE, Marcus St. John 'John'
Photo Source: William Cherry, Tom Lawrence
Nee: son of Capt. George Marcus Lawrence
Birth Date: 4 Sep 1921 Cape Town
Death Date: 29 Dec 1997 Nairobi
First Date: 6 Feb 1926
Last Date: 1997
Profession: National park warden. Professional hunter
Area: PO Equator
Married: 1. Muriel Ray Laws b. 17 Jan 1922 Ealing, d. 15 Apr 1950 Molo (schoolteacher at St Andrew's, Turi; 2. In Nairobi 1967 Julia McGeorge Shannon née Edwards b. 17 Feb 1932 Kilmacolm, Scotland, d. 28 Dec 1997 Nairobi
Children: Eric Marcus (25 Mar 1951); John Anthony (1 May 1956); Andrew Thomas 'Tom' (1965)
Book Reference: Sitrep 2, Sundown, Tsavo, Elephant People, Hut, mini-SITREP XII, Kingsley-Heath, Tom Lawrence
War Service: Kenya Regt. (KR 666), 2/4 KAR in W. Turkana Gondar, 12 KAR Tanganyika, 5 KAR Burma
School: Nakuru School 1928-34, Prince of Wales School
General Information:
Pre-war volunteer to the Kenya Regiment (KR 666).
Kingsley-Heath - M. St. J. Lawrence - Early national park warden in Kenya. Founder of Hunters Africa Ltd. Former president of EAPHA (1959-64). Accomplished wildlife artist and cabinet maker. …… Pioneer in Bechuanaland based at Kasane.
E-mail from Tom Lawrence - "My father. He also went to Nakuru School 1928-34. He then went on to the Prince of Wales School in Nairobi (Rhodes House) where he was a prefect and played rugby for the school. He was waiting for his exam results so that he could go and study veterinary science at Edinburgh when WW II broke out, and so he joined up instead, lying about his age.
He joined the Kenya Regiment and from there was transferred to the 2/4 KAR with whom he fought in North Turkana and then went with them to Gondar in Abyssinia and fought at Kulkaber Ridge and Azozo and was at the fall of Gondar itself. He attended OTC at Njoro and was commissioned into 12 KAR based in Tanganyika and Kenya, and then went to Ceylon in a draught in 1943 (the first convoy to leave Mombasa after the one in which the Khedive Ismail was sunk). He was transferred into 5 KAR with whom he served the rest of his time, and carried their colours at the Victory Parade in London in 1946.
He returned to Kenya after the war and helped his mother on the farm at Equator and did other small jobs in the Molo/Londiani/Equator area, and in 1947 went as an assistant hunter with Rudi van der Stegen for "Safariland". He had had plenty of hunting experience as he grew up holding a gun and it was his job "to keep the pot full" at home. He started White Hunters (Africa) Ltd with David Lunan and this ran well into the 1980s, although with a name change after Independence to Hunters Africa Ltd for obvious political reasons. He was amongst the first to move and open up Northern Botswana, and Hunters Africa Ltd had an office there as well. ………He became president (Chairman after independence) of the East African Professional Hunters Association from 1959 to 1964. He stopped hunting in 1979 and retired to a world of carpentry, painting and drawing in Langata.
He died on 29th Dec 1997 as a result of pneumonia which caused an abscess in his lung.
Sundown - 1948 - Senior hunter at Safariland when Bill Woodley joined them. Woodley was Lawrence's No 2.
Tsavo - Lawrence later Asst. Warden at Tsavo.
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